Berlin Notebook No.5 – New Red by Caroline Corleone

Today I am reviewing another new ink from Berlin Notebook. A little while ago Peter mentioned they were creating a new ink and at the time I asked if it would be a red ink, but Peter didn’t let on what the colour would be.  So, when I dropped by the site and saw it was a red ink, I was very keen to see what Peter and Caroline had created.

I placed my order and waited and about a week later a cardboard box arrived and in it was my bottle of No.5. Like No.1, No.5 is packaged in the signature brown card box with the circular label. When you extract the bottle from the box it has a matching round label and that’s it, no other branding whatsoever.

The first thing I noticed when I put the bottle on the desk was the strawberry red glow as the light hit it; I’ve tried to capture this in the picture of the bottle but I’m not sure I’ve done it justice.

When I opened the bottle, I thought I would find a red ink with strong pink undertones instead, when I tested it, it turned out that New Red is not red at all but is, in fact, a very nice pink.

Now I’m not normally a fan of pink ink; not for any particular reason, it’s just an ink colour that doesn’t grab my interest. However, this one is different, it’s more of a natural pink reminding me of some of the plants you find flowering in the garden at this time of year, and I do like it.

So, having had a play with it it was time to test No.5 properly and see if it lived up to the high standards of its predecessors; so, I got out the Q-Tips and the dip pen and I set to work.

Like all Berlin Notebook inks No.5 is well behaved, it flows evenly, and I experienced no hard starts or skipping. The lettering test produced nice evenly coloured letters and the Q-Tip test really showed the colour of the ink and when I layered it in the stripe test it simply deepened the colour and helped to bring out the gold sheen at the edges.

To me this is a real summer ink that, I think, would work well for drawing, brightening up your correspondence or your journal; and it would make a great highlighting colour when you are working with lists.

I think at €13.50 plus €1.50 shipping to pretty much anywhere is excellent value for a bespoke ink; so, I’m happy to recommend it and while your visiting Peter’s store you might want to check out his other inks, notebooks and tea.

Disclaimer: The ink was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.